By Clive Belfield and Julie Kashen, The Century Foundation, February 2, 2022
Families with young children have been hit especially hard during the COVID-19 pandemic: they have had to face not only all the labor market disruptions but also all the child care and schooling disruptions. In no prior downturn have families had to endure two disruptions of this magnitude hitting at the same time, with the same rapidity. Understanding the scope and size of these twin disruptions is important, not just for helping these families rebound, but also for promoting state and national economic recovery and ongoing growth. This commentary looks at the labor market disruptions faced by families with young children (ages 0–5) as a result of child care disruptions from the pandemic—costing these families $13 billion per year in lost income—as well as the broader economic consequences.
The pandemic was distinctive in how immediate the shock was: over just a few weeks starting in March 2020, the pandemic hit the labor market hard, causing sharp declines in employment, work hours, and incomes for many workers. But there are now lasting adversities of the pandemic: workers have lost opportunities for promotions and raises, stalling advancement in their careers. Similarly, there was a pandemic shock to the child care sector, with the immediate closure of many providers, followed by the sustained adversity of intermittent and scarce child care. Families with young children have had to navigate both shocks and both adversities.
The immediate economic consequences of pandemic-induced disruptions for families of young children were stark. Before the pandemic, 70 percent of mothers with young children were working; within weeks, the rate had fallen to 60 percent, and has only slowly climbed back to 65 percent since then. For those mothers who still had jobs, hours of work fell immediately by 20 percent; again, a slow reversion has only eliminated half of that decline. As a result, approximately one in fifteen mothers of young children are no longer in the workforce, and the remainder are working 10 percent less.
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